Reecho
by Anithene
Summary: Link, Zelda, Oot - They look at one another, across one-thousand years, caught in never ending ellipsis.


"We only part to meet again." - John Gay

* * *

He hasn't seen her in seven years.

Zelda stands before him, a goddess straight from any lore, her hair like shook foil in sunlight. They stand in some realm far above and between the clouds, alone, silent, breathless. He watches her lips and eyes and hands, wants them like nothing he's ever wanted before.

He hasn't seen her in seven years.

She's a stranger to him now, but she's as beautiful and soft and _radiant_ as he imagined her to be. They look at one another, guilt and shame veiled over her, stitched by those seven long years of his absence.

_What will you do?_ The words linger, caught in ellipses.

When she asks, so softly, for his ocarina, he wants to say no. He wants to do anything but give it to her, because he knows what she'll do. He knows how awful this world that isn't his will be, without him.

He can't imagine a world without her in it.

_Must I leave?_

Her only answer is a sullen, bitter _yes._

Link gives it to her, shudders when her hand comes to rest atop his. There is grace in every movement she makes. Sorrow, too.

They look at one another, across one-thousand years, caught in never ending ellipsis.

* * *

Even while he leaves, he gravitates toward her, through her, pushing past the years and ghosts between them, the unspoken words caged between her lips.

_Why must I leave?_

And -

_Where will you go?_

She has no answers.

He disappears into the shadows of Time.

* * *

Seven years is not such a long time, in the grand scheme of things.

But what does he know? He's a child again. A child should act like a child, even if he isn't one, not really, not inside.

He's a child who has lived two lives, and lost each one.

Link leaves the Master Sword in its rightful place, leaves the Temple of Time, leaves his grown-up life and grown-up memories.

He leaves, and never looks back.

He keeps one thing, and one thing only: The seven years he has lost, the seven years she has sent him back to relive, the seven years he never wanted.

* * *

This world fits him like an ill-made piece of armor, with jagged edges that chafe when he moves.

Even after he leaves, he feels himself being inexplicably pulled, like a flower toward sunlight, to _her. _Not the Zelda he remembers, with eyes full of guilt and lips remembering grief with too much fondness; not the Zelda that sent him back. Link no longer thinks of her that way (or tries not to), because what good will that do him? Remembering ghosts is worse than being haunted by them.

Link doesn't fight the pull; he follows where it leads, back to the courtyard where they first laid eyes.

He can't imagine a world without her in it.

* * *

When they meet again, there is an uncomfortable, sharp space between them, a thousand lives caught in ellipsis.

Even if he doesn't remember, _she does._

Zelda remembers.

How bright it must be, how free, to relive a thousand lives and never be aware of them, soul going from body to nameless body, endlessly. Zelda is not so lucky; for with Wisdom there is Knowledge, and she remembers every one of her past lives – all their eyes and their lips and their hands, their memories – their loss.

She stares at him from across the courtyard, a scene she has relived once before, because she remembers it. She remembers _him._ She remembers his blond hair and vivid eyes, the color of blue fire, eyes that have seen more than a child ever should.

Zelda remembers sending him – a _him_ that is also not him – into the past. This past. Their present. Which one it truly is, Zelda does not know.

He looks at her from across the royal courtyard, his grief and age settling blankly on youthful features. It's then, and only then, that Zelda curses the Goddesses, for playing such a cruel hand on him, this boy in green, with thousand-year-old eyes stuck in such a young face.

Then she remembers: They have done the same to her. He is not alone in his suffering, at least.

She takes small comfort in that.

* * *

They look at one another, across one-thousand years, caught in never ending ellipsis.

When Zelda takes the ocarina from his hand, it feels heavier than she has ever remembered it, filled with magical notes and the touch of his lips upon it. Her gloved fingertips graze its time-smoothened surface, the blueness of it matching his eyes.

Zelda looks at him from below her lashes, drooping sadly over her gaze, beginning to mist over with an emotion she won't allow herself to dwell on.

She raises the ocarina to her lips, pausing just long enough to look at him, their eyes reflecting and refracting into endless continuity.

_Must you leave?_

His answer is a sullen, bitter _yes._

Zelda whistles their parting into the ocarina; the Song of Time reaches into her own bones. It reaches across Time, across the lives they are destined to repeat, over and over.

* * *

But they meet again, in the end.


End file.
